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The Ruff Rider Canine Vehicle Safety Harness was first envisioned by Carl Goldberg in Boulder Co. While traveling down a windy mountain road at five mph, a car driving up the mountain, was traveling on the wrong side of the road. When Carl slammed on his brakes to avoid a collision, his 125-pound chocolate lab was ejected from the back seat and thrown through the windshield landing on the hood of the car. After this frightening incident, a new windshield, and a trip to the veterinarian, Goldberg realized the threat that an unrestrained dog presents in a moving vehicle, and he decided to do something about it. Not only was his dog’s life in danger, but the thought that his daughter, or another passenger, could have been severely injured by the dog was too much to bear.

He went to his local pet and outdoor stores to see what was available but found only inferior products that were too flimsy and did not fit properly. With an inspiration to make vehicles a safer place for dogs and the people riding with them, Goldberg consulted veterinary orthopedic surgeon Dr. Joseph “Doc Joe” Evans at the Nederland Co. Veterinary Hospital.  The result; Ruff Rider Roadie is orthopedically sound and ergonomically correct. The design received an 18 claim Broad Based Patent in 1996. Later Goldberg was awarded 2 Additional Patents. Ruff Rider Roadie is hands-down, the strongest, safest canine vehicle/ climbing harness in the world.


Ruff Rider first opened its doors in 1996. Later that year, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine awarded Ruff Rider’s Roadie was “Top Choice” and “Product of the Year” by Your Dog Magazine. In November 2003 Goldberg was “Inventor of the year” People magazine. Ruff Rider Roadie was available on Costco.com. Petopia.com (Petco’s website), in Alfalfa’s and Wild Oats Stores (Which became Whole Foods), in the Auto Industry thru Covercraft Industries, as well as hundreds of other stores and websites in the USA and Europe.

On his way back from a business trip to California, Goldberg was in a near fatal auto accident that forced him to shut down all wholesale operations. After years of physical therapy and the best eastern medicine, Goldberg reopened Ruff Rider and Roadie is once again available to resellers and end-user customers.

Since 1996. Ruff Rider has sold 4,000,000+ Roadies and never to our knowledge, have we ever lost a dog to serious injury or death.

Independently tested at Commercial Test Labs in Denver the wide webbing used for the MED, LG and XLG models showed an ultimate break strength of more than 9200 lbs. force, (S.A.E. standards for human seat belt webbing is 5,000 pounds). Roadie is crash tested at AZT Automotive, GmbH (Allianz) in Munich, Germany, in a real car, using their unique crash test dummy dog.  The Roadie safety harness fits dogs from 3 to 250 lbs.